Traumatized

After repeatedly dying for hours on end, David, eventually, called it a night when his daughter, Alice, was too exhausted to wait around anymore. He carried the sleepy child out of the dungeon and Violet went to sleep where she slept fitfully.

She had been beheaded, stabbed, sliced, and skewered repeatedly and even death didn't give her peace. David would simply wait until Violet left the dungeon core room and made her way back to the wildflower meadow. If she took too long, he would go and fetch her back himself, dragging her to the room where his daughter was waiting before thrusting her sword back into her hands and immediately getting back to it.

The next time Violet awoke, it was to the sound of footsteps followed up by a rather loud and angry Theodore questioning

"Why is the dungeon core on the verge of corrupting? What the heck have you been up to?! I've only been gone a few days!"

Violet groaned as she tried to stand up and soon gave up, just choosing to remain lying on the floor. Theodore looked at Violet and sighed as he kneeled down and brushed her hair out of her face. This time, more gently, he asked

"What happened the last few days? You don't look so hot and your condition is clearly affecting the dungeon core. You're lucky it hasn't corrupted or cracked from the pressure, but whatever is causing it needs to be resolved right away."

David laughed as he retorted

"You're really going to be like this today? You said you wanted me to train you, yet you're having this much trouble recovering after last night's beating? How do you expect to continue training in the future if you act like this after just one night?"

Theodore cast a glare at David, but soon turned his attention back to Violet as she croaked out

"You killed me! Repeatedly! I don't want to die anymore..."

Violet's voice sounded small at the end as her voice trailed off and tears began to fall down her face. The traumatic death that brought her into this world and the hellish training from yesterday had started to blur together, forming a sort of waking nightmare that never seemed to stop playing in Violet's mind.

Violet couldn't help but feel like she understood the dungeon masters who cowardly hid in their dungeon core rooms better now. She would rather leave things to her [Monsters] and put up deadly trap after deadly trap just to avoid having to ever die again. It was too much for her to bear. The pain of being sliced and stabbed seemed to linger in Violet's mind and it almost felt like the ache had seeped deep into her bones, making itself at home.

Theodore narrowed his eyes as he twirled around and grabbed David by the throat, pinning him against a wall as he seethed

"Do you want me to strip you of your life right here and right now? I guarantee that your precious daughter's life will be hell if she isn't sentenced to death for your foolish behavior!"

David choked on his words as he struggled to speak. Theodore just barely lessened the pressure he had on David's neck as he waited for the man to speak.

"Why? Why are you doing this?! Dungeon masters can't die unless the dungeon core is destroyed and I haven't laid a single finger on the thing!"

Theodore almost seemed to growl out his next words, anger clearly lacing his words

"Dungeon masters and dungeon cores are connected you fool! If Violet dies too often, her soul can become corrupted from the trauma of repeatedly dying! It might as well be the same thing as you slowly and deliberately corrupting the core until it cracks or, even worse, Violet and the dungeon go mad! You have no idea just how bad things get when dungeons corrupt. I would have to bring in the highest-level mages to completely destroy the dungeon with S-tier-level spells that would have devastating effects on the local environment for eons!"

Violet cried higher as Theodore's voice caused her already unstable emotions to become more chaotic and the dungeon core began to glow dangerously, the room flashing with a dark violet light. Theodore dropped David, kicking the man in the ribs before going to comfort Violet. He made comforting shushing sounds as he rubbed her back.

As a dungeon diplomat, it was Theodore's job to ensure dungeons followed the dungeon accords, but it was also his job to ensure the dungeons could thrive. He was much closer to being on the dungeons' side rather than humans since he had to actively help the dungeon masters as much as he could while keeping both sides in line.

It was a rather rare occurrence for dungeon masters to be manipulated to such an extent that they would allow themselves to become traumatized like this. Adventurers were foolish, but most dungeon masters were too self-preserving to even trust adventurers long enough to be misled like this. Of course, most dungeon masters weren't so innocent as to make the dungeon's system menu hard lock them into a theme for the dungeon either. The fact that Violet had been hard-locked into a rather weak-sounding 'cute' theme was especially of concern.

Once Violet had calmed down enough to, hopefully, be able to talk with Theodore to a reasonable extent, Theodore spoke softly to her

"I'm not upset with you, you clearly didn't know better. I'll have to check in on you more often, it would seem. You really shouldn't trust adventurers so easily. Most of them have no clue how dungeons work and they can easily lead you astray. The dungeon core will be fine so long as you can recover from this yourself. Dungeon masters dying isn't even the main issue since it isn't like there is a hard limit to how many times you can be revived.

You just need to be allowed to heal from the trauma of the deaths and ensure your mental health is alright. Maybe try to avoid dying any more than absolutely necessary for a while and try to find a hobby you can enjoy within your dungeon for a while. Some dungeon masters enjoy making statues of their favorite [Monsters] or adventurers. Others get really excited about making new puzzles and [Traps]. I don't know what you'll enjoy, but I'm sure you can figure something out."

Theodore turned, narrowing his eyes once more as he pointed at David and with a hardened voice demanded

"You wanted a contract with Violet and you are going to have one. However, if you want to avoid getting in trouble for this incident, you are going to have to agree to my terms and conditions. You can have your original condition regarding your daughter's safety and any [Traps] on the first floor. Heck, I'll even go so far as to restrict Violet from using any of the dungeon [Traps] on the first floor anywhere but the hallway that directly leads to the dungeon core room. Then she won't even have to worry too much about keeping up her side of the bargain.

As for you, I expect you to show up every night for the next year to teach her swordsmanship. You will not kill her even once or else you will have to face severe punishment under the law. You cannot harm her any more than the standard amount that a holy knight under the king might be harmed in normal swordsmanship training either. They hold their swordsmanship trainers to pretty high standards, so that means nothing more than surface injuries.

You will also be expected to give tribute every single time you show up for training and are expected to help to a reasonable extent to obtain the types of tributes Violet wants. This means anything that can be bought for the equivalent rate of what the harvestable [Items] on the first floor are worth. Whether that be one copper or one gold, you'll just have to harvest enough ingredients to sell to make it not be a burden on yourself financially.

In order to help you with your transition into being able to train Violet, I will arrange for you to have a job with the adventurer's guild. They will be setting up a branch here soon enough since there is a dungeon here. Your contract will also be subject to renewal depending on how efficiently you have trained Violet over the course of the year. If you slack off and do a poor job, you won't be getting off any time soon, that much I assure you."

Violet was a bit surprised by Theodore's rather kind terms. He had arranged for a plan that would benefit both of them while ensuring no one would have to make too many concessions. Before Violet could even think too much about it, the contract was written up and signed then gone in a puff of purple smoke. The only proof that Violet had of the contract having taken effect was a single system notice.

[A new dungeon contract has been registered with the system. Would you like to review the terms?

Yes or No?]